The Hobbit movies

So this year we're going to see The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey movie and on next year is coming The Hobbit: There and Back Again. Making two films at the book which is less than half long as the first book of The Lord of the Rings is already a quite achievement. On The Hobbit trailer and Jackson reports we already know, that there's going to be extra scenes and even new characters which original book didn't had. I'm actually pretty excited, because I liked how Jackson filmed LOTR movies. Seeing more about Middle-Earth scenes would be nice, but ...

Quite blast was to read that Peter talked at Comic-Con 2012, that he would like to make The Hobbit into a trilogy (
source
). What do you think is that too much already or are you waiting to see more than original book had to tell?

More about these speculations can be found at:
Screen Rant
- ‘The Hobbit 3′ Edges Closer to Production
TOR.COM
- Five Possible Reasons that The Hobbit is Spilling Over into a Third Movie

It's better to have them in two (or three) than to try to stuff all in to one very cut movie. But I would really like to watch first and second movie at the same time. Like having a break after first one and continuing on the second one. I don't know how it will feel like after seeing just the first half and then waiting for the second part to come out only to watch it without fresh memories of the first one. Will they really feel like different movies? Or just part1 and part2?

I'm looking forward to these, but I don't enjoy the waiting either. I remember the feeling when I walked out of the movie theatre after seeing the first LOTR movie and I knew I have to wait for a whole year for the next one.

I haven't been following much the news of the production, so I didn't know there will be new characters in the movie. I don't mind, as I think books and movies are never the same. I trust Peter Jackson in this :)

I think trilogy would be too much. It will be great to see where the first movie ends, I have my ideas and guesses... I hope it hasn't been revealed, has it?

I think Jackson is suffering from "mammoth" disease. The topics he's interested just get more and more material added in, because he can't stop including everything.

I suspect some fans of the books will like it, but in my opinion shorter, leaner movies might be better. We already got 3 long movies with LOTR, how the heck is he going to stretch the more juvenile adventure story of The Hobbit into three full-length movies???

I think the whole Hobbit movie has blown out of hands. It should have been done to the LOTR, make 2-3 movies on each part, instead of all the changes to the plot. On Hobbit, the making of three movies smells like rotten greed.
I was excited when the Hobbit movie was first announced - now I've decided not to go see any of them. I can always read the book when I want and maybe watch 'em years later from telly. Jackson has twisted the original story too much for my taste to earn any more of my money...

”I am enough of an artist to draw freely upon my imagination. Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination encircles the world.” ~Albert Einstein~

I'm really excited over this. The trailer looks great. I went on Youtube and watched all the "making of" shorts. It was like watching my LOTR DVD extras lol. I realize they're shuffling things a bit, but books rarely translate perfectly to film.

When I first heard of the Harry Potter series I was meh. Then I saw the first movie. Then I read the books. Then when I watched the second movie, and the third, and the fourth, I noticed that by reading the books, it lessened my enjoyment of the movies here and there but enjoyed reading the books more because of the first movie.
I've never read the LotR books but I love the movies. I've read maybe a third of the hobbit if that, and don't actually remember much of anything about. As a movie I expect it to be good. As a book movie, I better read the Hobbit only after I've seen the movie, it'll make the book more enjoyable. Mmm, Martin Freeman. It gives the book more dimension to able to imagine an actor there, and their voices. And to be able to sort the dwarves out.

As long as you derive inner help and comfort from anything, keep it. – Mahatma Gandhi

By my opinion, movies replace books pretty well. I mean that if you are not about the details, you know what books are by watching movies.

Except "Two Towers". That movie was a little bit too far from book content. There was no shield surfing Legolas in books...

Rainy-D wrote: I've read maybe a third of the hobbit if that, and don't actually remember much of anything about. As a movie I expect it to be good.

I'm horrified of thought that Hobbit might look like LotR-movies. It can't do that. The Hobbit is a classic style children fantasy book, while LotR is an epic fantasy adventure with very adult themes (war, addiction, end of world as we know it, corruption etc.). It's movie adaptation should look something like Neverending Story (with hand-made puppets and everything, no CGI monsters in dark and megalomanic scenes). So my expectations towards the movie are so low, that I can actually be positively surprised

Well - what did people think? I thought it was amazing. The scene with Gollum and Bilbo (Riddles in the Dark) was outstanding. Yes, there were extra scenes, but I thought they were well done generally. The dwarf halls at the beginning were brilliant.

I am a big fan of the Lord of the Rings series and this opportunity to return to Middle Earth for more films is absolutely fantastic!

I think Martin Freeman was a great cast for the role and that he succeeded even better than I had imagined. After leaving the movie theater I had to fight the urge to circle back and go see it again. (It was a day show so there was more starting, so I could have.)

And the dwarves? That bunch of men was hilarious. Richard Armitage as Thorin was very, very impressive. I got goosebumps when the dwarves sang Far Away the Misty Mountains Cold. It's great that the cast sang the song themselves, so it wasn't a group of professional singers but "the real dwarves" in a way.

By the way, I find it quite hilarious that both two main characters from one of my favorite tv-series, Sherlock, are also in Hobbit. Martin Freeman, Bilbo, plays Dr. Watson in Sherlock and even though in Hobbit we don't really get to see Sherlock himself, Benedict Cumberbatch, in action, he will appear more in the next part - as a fire-breathing, enormous dragon Smaug.

Baldric wrote: Shame there aren't more episodes. I wasn't sure if it would work, set in modern times - but it was really good.

I agree. After the Reichenbach Falls episode... well, let's just say I'm really happy there's going to be more episodes. It would be a cruel thing to call it a day at this point.

When it comes to Radagast, I'm quite ambivalent. I mean, I do like how he's portrayed in the movie and since his part in the books is very small I thought they had in a way created Radagast just for the movie and he really "fit in" well. I didn't, however, like the scenes he had and thought that the attack of those spider-y things didn't really have a meaning in the story - at least so far. Seems like it was just for those extra minutes.

I liked Hobbit quite a lot. The beginning was perhaps bit slow, but I never liked it much in the books either. Still, I felt urge to sing along when the dwarves started singing at Bilbo's house. Troll scene was bit different than what I remembered (but last time when I read the book was 1989).

Rivendell, Elves, Galadriel etc. were great. Also prelude in the beginning and Thorins first encounter with Azog were great. Radagast was as funny as I expected.

When I first time read the book I liked very much about the stone giants scene and in the film it was disappointment. First of all, I never imagined them being actual stone, I thought them to be real flesh and blood giants. The name stone giant doesn't really need to mean that they are made of stone, like swordman isn't made of swords either. I thought dwarves would just be watching in awe, when giants threw stones at each others and lightnings struck around, instead I got silly acrobatics scenes.

Again similar toppling walkways in the goblin caves.. I hated the toppling stairs in the LotRs Moria also, and Peter Jackson went overdrive with that again. Otherwise I liked the goblin part, especially Gollum was great.

The end was pure ecstacy. Story really was full action in the end, with great music and scenes it was excellent. In the books scene where they threw wargs with flaming cones was hilarious, here wargs and orcs were so menacing that I didn't get that feeling. Music was excellent all the way.

Despite my disliking couple scenes I loved the film and I'm sure I will be watching it many times more when extended cut dvd's arrive. At times I wondered what would be the target audience. At times it was bloody action and head tossing and at other times just silly and childish. I know it's based on childrens book but was bit distracted about the tone changes.

Anyway, I will be eagerly waiting for seeing more Smaug, one of the most legendary dragons there is in the fantasy literature.

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